


remember the fireworks back then

by pyrophane



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Minor Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 02:18:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17778716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrophane/pseuds/pyrophane
Summary: “The person you are in the Games doesn’t have to beyou,do you understand? It doesn’t matter what you do in there. Just come home.”





	remember the fireworks back then

**Author's Note:**

> > the thg half of this is a fusion of book/movie canon + a whole heap of invented lore, some of which was inspired by [this post](https://themockingjay.livejournal.com/450940.html), but it should all be pretty clear in the fic! jaemin and jisung are from district 2, whose main industry is masonry  
> > i swapped renjun and mark's ages for plot convenience, the rest of dream are 16-18 here  
> > heads up that there's some mildly graphic animal death in the section starting with _Like every other trainee in the Career program…_ so feel free to skip that part if you need to!!  
> > cee if you're reading this i hope you are gotten ♡♡♡
> 
> edit: translation into vietnamese available [here](https://sanctificxtion.wordpress.com/2019/08/11/remember-the-fireworks-back-then-foreword/)!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“With all due respect, teacher,” Jaemin says, “Jisung’s only sixteen. He’s not ready—”

“Are you suggesting your judgement is better than the Academy’s?” There’s an undercurrent of warning in Head Trainer Irene’s voice, though it remains light.

“No, teacher,” Jaemin mutters. “It’s just—if they think Jisung’s so good now, why not wait another year or two, let him get even better? He’ll be able to put on a better show, once he’s had the time to mature…”

The set of Head Trainer Irene’s mouth softens a little. “The decision came from Head Office,” she says. “We didn’t get a veto right this year. Short of one of you incapacitating yourself in the next few days, there’s nothing that can be done. I trust that I don’t need to remind you what Two does to those who try to evade their duties.”

“No, teacher,” Jaemin repeats.

 _Na Jaemin,_ the file open on Head Trainer Irene’s desk reads. She’d let him take a look through it, earlier. Jaemin’d been surprised it kept the last name; trainees give up their surnames when they enter the Academy, all family loyalties left behind, and it’d been at least a decade since he’d seen his own attached to him. The District owns them, body and soul. _Age: 18. Height: 178 cm. Specialisation: Knives._ He’d only gotten that far before his eye caught on the file below it, the one marked—

“Jisung is a very precocious trainee,” Head Trainer Irene says. “You of all people should know that age is not an insurmountable barrier to victory. There have been Victors as young as fourteen, in the past.”

“Of course,” Jaemin murmurs.

The capitulation seems to appease her. “Your Mentor will be Renjun,” she says. “He requested the assignation specifically. I believe the two of you know each other?”

Jaemin blinks. Renjun is only two years out of his own Games, which still counts as fresh in the long-memoried Victor timeline of District Two. “We were friends when we were younger,” he says slowly, turning the words over in his mouth as he says them. _Friends_ is really playing fast and loose with the truth. “If I can ask—Jisung’s Mentor?”

Head Trainer Irene almost looks pitying. “Boa.”

And the gears slot into place, start turning. Boa won her Games eighteen years ago, aged fourteen, the youngest Victor in the history of the Games. Since then she’s mentored four times and returned from the Capitol with just as many Victors, an unparalleled record. One of those Victors had been Renjun, and weighing up a loyalty to the Mentor who brought you home against a loyalty to an old classmate there could hardly be a contest.

In short, the chances of Jaemin making it out of that arena alive—  

“Well, regardless—congratulations on your selection, Jaemin,” Head Trainer Irene says. She smiles, and Jaemin sits up straighter on instinct. “I know you’ll make our District proud.”

To die for your District is, after all, the second highest honour there is.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“No. No way,” Jisung says flatly.

Jaemin smiles wider. “Guess who.”

“This can’t be real. I can’t believe they’re putting me in with _you—_ ”

“Aww, Jisung,” Jaemin coos, swooping in to pinch his cheeks. Jisung scowls and bats his hands away. “Aren’t you glad it’s me?”

Jisung ignores him with an ease borne of a lifetime of practice. “How did you get in here.”

“Ambushed your roommate after training and threatened him with minor bodily harm unless he let me in, obviously.” Jaemin leans gracefully backwards onto Jisung’s bed.  

Twelves to Fourteens are sequestered six to a dorm. Fifteens get four, Sixteens two. If you make the cut to Seniors you get the privilege of a room all to yourself. District Two rewards effort. When you enter the Academy you are nothing but your capabilities. The only social currency is strength, no messy family histories or class consciousness to muddy the waters.

“You should request a single,” Jaemin continues. “It’s not like they can really refuse. You could probably ask for anything right now and they’d give it to you. Our baby Volunteer candidate Jisung, youngest Career in Two’s history.” He punctuates this with another swipe for Jisung’s cheeks, and this time Jisung doesn’t twist out of Jaemin’s reach fast enough, or lets himself be pulled down onto the bed beside Jaemin.

“What am I gonna do with a single? It’s two days out from the Reaping.”

“So you can spend those two days in the luxury of solitude,” Jaemin explains patiently. “If they’re going to treat you like a Senior you might as well enjoy the benefits, right?”

Jisung’s the once-in-a-lifetime type of genius with a flashy specialisation in dual-wield butterfly swords, already accelerated into Seniors classes, so on a technical level he lacks nothing that an Eighteen would have. Might surpass them, even. But as prodigious as he is, Jisung hasn’t undergone the trial Games that function as an entry test into the Seniors program, only by virtue of the fact that he hasn’t hit the age of seventeen yet. He’s done simulations, even human kills, but none of that matches up to the full thing, and it worries Jaemin.

He doesn’t have the hard data of the Academy’s records. What he _does_ have, though, is an understanding of Jisung curated over a lifetime of knowing him. But he’s probably pushed Jisung too hard for today. Any further and Jisung will shut him off completely, so Jaemin elects to retreat.

“Well, congratulations on your selection,” Jaemin says.

Jisung frowns, like he’d been expecting Jaemin to say something else. “Uh. You too, I guess.”

“See you on that Reaping stage,” Jaemin says cheerfully. “Wow, it’ll be such a fairytale moment. You and me together. Isn’t that what we always dreamed of!”

Right as Jaemin’s swivelling around so he can stand up, Jisung flings his arms around Jaemin’s midsection, presses his face between Jaemin’s shoulderblades. And Jaemin goes still, holds his breath, knowing exactly what this kind of gesture means coming from Jisung, who’d never reciprocate anymore, let alone initiate. Who’s tried so hard to outgrow everything, Jaemin included.

“I’m glad it’s you,” Jisung mumbles. The sound dampened by the fabric of Jaemin’s shirt. Just as abruptly, Jisung lets go.

Jaemin hesitates for a moment. Lowers his head. Then he gets up, and without looking back he leaves the room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the end, Jaemin’s fairytale moment happens like this:

“Na Jaemin!” Two’s escort Tiffany announces, already angling herself towards the Eighteens in expectation of the familiar Volunteer offer.

In the space between breaths Jaemin’s heart drops into his stomach. Out of the corners of his eyes Jaemin can see the gazes of each Academy trainee snap towards him, needling at the back of his neck, identical in their horror. He steps out from the ranks of the Eighteens, and the cameras find his face.

A stunned note of silence. The square resonates with it. Every eye fixed on the pin on his collar in the shape of District Two’s crest, the one that marks him as this year’s selected Volunteer, gleaming in the sunlight. But Jaemin has always been top of the class in image control, and as he walks forward his posture is perfect, the smile on his face in sparkling high-definition blown up on the massive screens to either side of the Reaping stage, every inch the effortlessly perfect Two Career.

When he climbs the stairs to the stage he looks Tiffany directly in the eye and smiles wider, angling himself so the pin is in plain view of the cameras, and it seems to shake her out of her shock. “Our first Tribute, Na Jaemin!” she announces, lifting his hand up, and like they’ve been set on a time delay the Academy trainees erupt into applause, the rest of the crowd taking the cue and joining in.

Over in the Victors’ seating area there’s a mix of barely-concealed indignation and fury playing out over every face. Renjun’s brows are knitted; Boa’s eyes are blazing, lips pressed into a thin line. Even Jaemin can recognise this is an insult to the Academy, a warning, a reminder that the Capitol's favour is fickle, discretionary.

“I Volunteer!” Jisung yells, practically before Tiffany’s finished reading out the second name, and there’s another ripple of unease as the crowd sees him peel off from the Sixteens, but this time the response from the Academy trainees is immediate, everyone melting aside like an honour guard as he passes, and cheering overtakes the square.

When prompted he gives his name as _Jisung,_ the proper Career way. Panem first, District first, every other loyalty severed clean at the roots. Jisung’s hand swallows his but Jaemin doesn’t flinch. Just squeezes back.

“Our District Two Tributes for the year, Na Jaemin and Jisung!” Tiffany calls. The answering roar is tumultuous, and for a moment Jaemin lets himself be swept up in it, nothing existing but that luminous shared passion welling up and overflowing, blood from a cut and just as potent.

Then they’re ushered offstage into the waiting rooms for visiting time. Jaemin eyes the door, the dark smudges of the Peacekeepers on the other side through the frosted glass—as though any Two Career would try to run away from rather than towards the Games. He considers using the time to take a brief nap. Careers have no family, and the hypercompetitive nature of the program isn’t exactly conducive to friendship, so this is primarily just a show of protocol. The only person he’d want to see is sitting in the other room, anyway.

The door opens. “Hi,” Renjun says, shutting the door neatly behind him.

“Hi,” Jaemin says. Renjun gazes evenly at him. “So I guess you’re my Mentor?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Renjun’s Games were two years ago. He’d been Reaped, too, and for whatever reason that year’s preselected Volunteer hadn’t taken his place—later that boy was flogged in the square in front of the entire Academy for the shame of letting his fear of death push past his duty to his District in some kind of self-imposed stasis, a lifetime of forward momentum aborted, the worst kind of coward. But ultimately Renjun had played the charismatic sadist, his District Partner the archetypal Two-brand loyal patriot. Jaemin thinks they had been close, in the Academy, but the memory is too distant, and besides Renjun is really the only one he’d known out of the two of them.

Before he disappeared into the intensive Seniors program, Renjun’s specialisation had been knives, same as Jaemin. In the arena Renjun hadn’t touched a single one, stuck exclusively to blunt-force weapons nearly half his size— _pay attention, this is a Career who knows how to play to the cameras,_ the Trainer on duty had said, as Jaemin and the rest of his cohort clustered together in the viewing room to watch Renjun smash a boy’s chest in with a wooden club. _Nothing the Capitol loves more than a tiny kid with an oversized weapon._

Renjun’s final kill count rounded out to six, each one messier than the last. Those six hadn’t included his District Partner, who’d come in third. But anything less than first in the Games means _dead_. In the end there’s no practical difference, except maybe to Renjun.

He’s smaller than Jaemin remembers from the Academy. More contained, the directionless viciousness Jaemin recalls of him compacted down. Back when they’d known each other Renjun was constantly getting out of fights nobody quite knew how he’d gotten into in the first place, not at all the quiet, solemn boy he’d seemed at first. He’d replayed that transition for his Games. The Capitol ate up the wide-eyed, soft-mouthed innocence he’d projected all through his interview, the seamlessness with which he shucked it as soon as he set foot in the arena.

“I wanted to talk to you about the Reaping first,” Renjun says, a cautious earnestness to the words, like he’s feeling out the borders of a new authority. It doesn’t exactly make Jaemin inclined to respect him the way he knows Tributes are supposed to respect their Mentors.

“Of course,” Jaemin says. Regardless of how he feels, the charm switches on automatically, smile, angles, but Renjun doesn’t let on whether he’s fazed, either on a Mentorly or personal level.

Renjun’s eyes are serious. “I didn’t get to Volunteer either,” he says, and Jaemin realises this is supposed to be _a pep talk._ “You earned your place on this stage. Just because you didn’t Volunteer doesn’t mean you don’t—deserve to be here.”

“I know,” Jaemin says. Twelve years, just for this. “I  _know._ ”

“But _do_ you?”

It’s impossible not to let a shade of bitterness cool the words. “Well, you picking me, and your old Mentor picking Jisung—it isn’t that hard to connect the dots, you know—”

Jaemin is fast, but Renjun is the Victor out of the two of them, and before Jaemin even registers the transition from stillness to motion Renjun has him pinned to the wall, the heel of his palm digging into his windpipe. No weapon but his own body, but what else does he need when he won by snapping the neck of the runner-up his year with his bare hands? Every instinct in Jaemin’s body screams at him to break the hold, fight back, but Renjun doesn’t give an inch. That strength absolute.

“Listen to me,” Renjun says calmly. Jaemin has his head tilted as far back as he can against the wall, trying to breathe. “I put my hand up to Mentor you because I thought you could _win._ Not because I thought you’d make good cannon fodder for Jisung or whatever the fuck it is you think. Because I knew you then and I know you now and you have what it takes to come back alive. So I’m not going to go easy on you, and don’t even think about going easy on yourself. Do you understand?”

Past the red-alert of fight adrenaline convinced he will die if he doesn’t get free from Renjun right this second, Jaemin’s grudgingly impressed that Renjun knew exactly how to get to him, but of course any Career understands the language of violence. Maybe this is how Boa convinced Renjun, too. “Yeah,” Jaemin manages to grit out, and Renjun lets go, but he doesn’t step back.

“I need you to trust me,” Renjun says. “If I’m going to be able to bring you home then you have to trust me enough to let me. Don’t you think I know what it feels like?” Suddenly he looks very tired, and very young, but the thin slope of his shoulders doesn’t waver at all. Keystone-steady. “You’re going to win, Jaemin.”  

The words settle like glowing coals. A lit-up path to victory. And now that it’s been said out loud—maybe Jaemin does still have the capacity for faith.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once they’ve boarded the train, the four of them gather together in the main compartment for the Reaping recaps. Surreal to think that he’s finally witnessing this from the inside, rather than in the Academy viewing rooms with the Trainers’ commentary as backdrop.

They tune in just in time to see District One’s escort present their Tributes for the year, beautiful as One Careers always are, but One A looks strangely familiar to him. “Hey,” Jaemin says, squinting. “Is that—”

“One A is Lee Jeno, the child actor, as you probably know,” Renjun reels off. “One B, Lee Donghyuck—younger brother of One’s mayor.”

Lee Jeno is no stranger to the whole spectacle. He’d been Reaped a few years back and the brief closeup on his face as his name was called had sent the Capitol into a frenzy over the cut of his profile, uncommonly handsome even for One. They’d brought him over to the Capitol to do some commercials, a short film or two, but the consensus was it wouldn’t do him any good to keep him away from his education for too long— _education_ naturally meaning One’s Career program.

Either way, he got to keep his last name out of it, a prestige marker for Ones. And clearly so did Lee Donghyuck. It’s an interesting move, strategically, to send two such high-profile candidates into the Games. Unprecedented, even. Unlike Two, One has a habit of selecting Seventeens or even Sixteens, and spread across two years they might have given One a fair shot at back-to-back victories, if their skillsets actually stretch far enough to fill the shadows cast by their names. One’s Volunteer pool must be vastly restricted purely on the basis that they evaluate on physical appearance where Two doesn’t, but surely things weren’t dire enough over there that they were forced to play two potential aces in a single hand.

So that’s what Jaemin will be up against, Ones even more polished and perfect than the usual. Lee Jeno is practically going in with a built-in sponsor base; his mentor won’t even have to do any work canvassing the Capitol elite. Whatever else happens, it’s certainly not going to be a conventional Games. “It wouldn’t be fun without a challenge!” he says out loud, and ignores the look Jisung slides towards him.

“Taemin tells me One’s sending in Key and Onew as their Mentors,” Boa says, tapping at the flatscreen pad on her lap. “One will definitely be our main competition this round. Make sure the alliance holds during training.”

“Specialisation guesses?” Renjun says.

Jaemin eyes the line of Jeno’s shoulders onscreen. “Sword for One A,” he says. “He seems like the type. For One B…”

“Bow and arrow,” Jisung says. “Check out his back tension.”

Boa nods approvingly. “Exactly what I would have said.”

The District Two recap passes in silence which is only not awkward because Jaemin staunchly refuses to characterise it as such. At least he doesn’t look shaken at all as he ascends the stage onscreen, shows off the smile he’s been perfecting for a decade to the cameras, a small relief set against the humiliation of the rest of it.

Neither of the Fours this year are Volunteers, but they seem well-built enough, decent potential Career pack material. Renjun murmurs something about waiting for the first day of training to decide. The rest of the Reapings are stock-standard fare, no Volunteers, decent spread of ages and builds. Eleven B is the only other Eighteen, but nothing about him stands out in particular.

Idly, Jaemin’s struck by the realisation that every single person in this carriage went through a Reaping gone wrong, even if Jisung would protest the categorisation, collated handful of outliers in an otherwise faultlessly efficient system. It’s rare that the chosen Volunteers for the year don’t end up being the Tributes Two sends up to the Capitol—Renjun and Boa are the only ones in the history of the Games, both of them righting that wrong through sheer skill and earning the privilege of mononyms.

Or _were_ the only ones. The precedent’s there. Jaemin just needs to follow it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The distance between District Two and the Capitol can be crossed by high-speed train in less than a day. By early afternoon they’ve already crossed the city borders, the beacon of the Training Centre rising out of the skyline at the very heart of the Capitol. They partition by Mentor-Tribute pairs for the rest of the train ride. Jaemin knows how this section goes, the traditional Two pre-Games routine drilled into him—image consultations under the guise of Mentor-Tribute bonding time, and sure enough when Renjun opens his mouth it’s to say, “Your file says you’ve been leaning toward the same angle since trials. Pretty-boy killer, basically the One type… is that what you were planning to go with for the Games?”

“Well, I don’t have a lot of options,” Jaemin says, shrugging. After he tested into Seniors the Trainers experimented with a few different images for him—for months he was on protein supplements, bulking up until it was decided he didn’t have the right face to play the silent hulking mountain-man type. Then they had him try out _completely unhinged maniac_ , which was actually pretty fun while it lasted; he’d nearly gone in to get his canines filed for the extra appeal before they’d pulled the plug on that one too.

He likes to think of it as versatility but there’s elements of those other personas he’d inhabited for however long that he still can’t shake, a broadness to the shoulders, a smile disconcertingly wide and toothy. What he has now is a strange amalgamation of everything he’s tried out and everything was before, though he supposes he wasn’t really anything before the Academy gave him something to be.

Jisung’s boy prodigy branding has evergreen appeal; he’s never had to think about this kind of thing. Lucky him.

“But is it what you want to take into the arena?” Renjun says. “We need to decide now, because you’ll have to start establishing it from the moment you get to the Capitol.”

It doesn’t matter what Jaemin wants, because Jaemin doesn’t want anything the Academy didn’t want for him. “I don’t mind,” he says. “What do you think?”

Renjun studies him for a long moment. “If it works, then it works,” he says. “It suits you. But it’s just a persona. Doesn’t have to mean anything more than what you want it to mean.”

That’s easy enough for Renjun to say, on the other side of it all. Jaemin doesn’t think he could manage it like Renjun, who treats his images like a set of comfortable jackets, something stubborn at the core of him always illuminated and shining through no matter which front he puts up. And as for what’s at Jaemin’s core—

“Do you think—were Jisung and I chosen because of the Volunteers One put up,” Jaemin says slowly.   

“We did know who One were entering this year ahead of time,” Renjun says, giving Jaemin a look that tells him he didn’t miss the redirection. “I guess Head Office thought if there was anyone that could go up against them and give us a decent chance of winning it would be you two.” He makes a face. “I don’t like it when we go for narrative on this scale. It’s not right. We’re Two, we shouldn’t need to rely on this much cameraplay to win.”

It’s the first time Jaemin’s ever heard any Victor speak out against the decisions of the Academy. “Should… you be saying that?”

Renjun smiles, a thin slash across his face like an old scar. “What can they do to me that they haven’t already? Anyway, I think you can handle the rest of it. You know what you need to do. Ah—look out the window.”

Jaemin looks. There’s a veritable ocean of Capitolites clustered by the station, upturned faces alight with excitement and probably something like implanted luminescent gems too, a fervour so zealous it’s practically shimmering off them like heat haze. The train is entirely soundproofed but as they approach, the clamour of the crowd is palpable. Everywhere he looks there are banners and signs decorated with Tribute names and faces—Jaemin picks his own out, scattered through the sea of people, like miniature reflections. Flattens his palm to the glass in wonder.

“See?” Renjun says. “They love you already.”

“They don’t even know me,” Jaemin says quietly.

“They’ve seen your face and what District you’re from,” Renjun says. “That’s really all they need.”

That baseless faith. He knows it isn’t that big a deal to the Capitol citizens, who go through the same spectacle every year, but to Jaemin it’s unthinkable. Already he feels indebted, obliged to reciprocate.

“If you don’t want to deal with the crowd there’s a secret exit that only a few vetted media outlets know about,” Renjun says, after a while. “There’s also a secret secret exit, for the _really_ camera-shy Tributes, but I don’t think that’s you.”

“No,” Jaemin says. “No, let’s leave by the main exit. I’ll give them what they came here for.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Preparations for the opening parade start as soon as they step into their quarters on the second floor of the residential tower attached to the Training Centre. Jaemin’s whisked away into a studio in the Remake Centre, where the trio of his assigned prep team get to work polishing him into Capitol-standard perfection.

“We hardly ever get to work with such a beautiful canvas,” one of them sighs, buffing Jaemin’s fingernails. “Now don’t get me wrong, I’m a _huge_ fan of Two, but working with One would just be dreamy. You’re certainly pretty enough for One, darling.”

Jaemin only smiles, tight-lipped, as shimmering powder is dusted along his cheekbones.

His stylist introduces himself as Nakamoto Yuta. “I was thinking we play up Two’s warrior image rather than going with the rocks or whatever,” he explains, adjusting the drape of the bronze tunic he’s dressed Jaemin in. It’s a textured fabric with a low sheen that mimics chainmail, as Yuta had informed him earlier. “How does that feel? It should fit perfectly, I made it.”

It does fit perfectly. Over the tunic goes a golden neckplate layered like quartz points, a pair of matching wrist cuffs, and finally a winged helmet, two blades in the same design as the neckplate fanning out on either side of Jaemin’s head. When he looks at himself in the mirror on Yuta’s instruction he doesn’t recognise himself for a moment, and then he does.

Soon enough they’re milling around behind the stadium, waiting for the parade to start. Jisung is in an identical outfit to Jaemin, though he looks significantly less composed in it, a gangly assemblage of limbs. That’s just Jisung; something about him always seems ill at ease. There was a time when Jaemin might have tried to comfort him, and before that a time when Jisung might have let him, but they’re long past those.

“Let’s go say hi to One,” Jaemin suggests. “Get a bit of proactive alliance-building in!”

Jisung makes a complicated expression and instead heads towards Four’s chariot, where the two Tributes are dressed as sailors. One of them has a shock of dyed-purple hair; he waves Jisung over and starts chatting, so forcefully forward it seems that Jisung is being swept along in his wake. Last year’s Victor, Kim Yerim, came from Four, so the odds aren’t exactly in their favour this year, but back-to-back victories aren’t unheard of for Career Districts, so Jaemin will have to be careful.

“Well, okay then,” Jaemin says aloud, to nobody in particular.

One’s stylists this year seem to be going for a darker kind of glamour than usual, judging by the black body harnesses and the silver chain detailing their Career counterparts across the border are sporting. Jaemin strides over to their chariot. Lee Jeno is the first to see him, moving out of the shadow cast by the carriage to meet Jaemin.

“Two A,” Jeno greets, inclining his head. Up close he really is just as handsome as he is onscreen, high cheekbones, sharp jawline, bright eyes.

“One A,” Jaemin replies. There’s a delicate moment of silence where they pretend not to size each other up. “Your name certainly… precedes you.”

Jeno’s eyes curve up. “I’m Jeno,” he says.

His District Partner, freed from the clutches of his stylist, seizes the moment to swoop in. “Na Jaemin, right?” Lee Donghyuck says, sticking his hand out. “Mind if I call you Nana?”

Jaemin feels the corners of his smile freeze in place, but he’s hardly about to let a One Career get under his skin within the first three seconds of meeting him. “Of course not,” he says. He grasps Donghyuck’s hand.

“Don’t mind him,” Jeno says. “Our Haechannie doesn’t get the concept of boundaries.”

“Haechannie?”

“Old nickname,” Donghyuck says.

A pause. “You guys knew each other before?”

“Yeah, roommates,” Jeno says.

“Best friends,” Donghyuck adds cheerfully, slinging an arm around Jeno’s shoulders.

Jaemin raises his eyebrows. “That’s… you know there’s only one Victor?”

“Of course,” Jeno says. He and Donghyuck both look remarkably unconcerned about the fact that this marks the start of the last days they’ll ever have together.

Over by Four’s chariot, Jisung’s posture has opened up, some of the everpresent tension in the way he holds himself lightening, and he’s nodding along to whatever Four B is saying. Jaemin straightens up.

“Heard you and Two B got history, too,” Donghyuck says.

“And where would you have picked that up?”

“Oh, you know,” Donghyuck says, in the same airy tone. “Around.”

“We heard it from our Mentors,” Jeno clarifies.

“You are such a wet blanket,” Donghyuck sniffs. “A vibe killer.”

“My favourite job,” Jeno says proudly.

This isn’t a topic of conversation Jaemin wants to dwell on. “So who are your picks so far?” Jaemin says. “I mean, like, just from looking at everyone else.”

“What, you want a hotness ranking?” Donghyuck says.

“Sure, that works too.”

Jeno considers it for a while. “Eleven B,” he says.

“Eleven… B?”

“Yeah,” Jeno says. “His eyes are shaped like parallelograms, did you notice?”

“Maths turns you on?”

“You didn’t have to say it like that,” Jeno says sadly.

“Oh, but I did.”

“I really think this could be the start of a beautiful alliance,” Donghyuck says, clasping his hands together in front of his chest. “My pick is myself, by the way.”

“What a coincidence! Mine’s also myself—” Jaemin catches Yuta’s eye back at the Two chariot; Yuta’s arms are crossed. “Okay, my stylist’s calling, I’ll leave you two to it.”

Jeno waves. “See you at training tomorrow—”

“Bye!” Donghyuck calls. “Though the time we spent together was short I’ll remember it as long as I live—”

At last every Tribute is loaded onto the chariots, waiting inside for the parade to start. Jisung fidgets in his costume and Jaemin wants to lay a hand on his forearm, still him, but he doesn’t.

“So how did it go with Four?” Jaemin says instead.

Jisung blinks twice, nose twitching. “Uh—Chenle said—”

“Who—oh, Four B?” Jaemin says. “First name basis already, wow, moving so fast!”

Jisung’s mouth flattens. “ _Chenle_ said that Four A’s never done a day of combat or anything like that in his life.”

“Are we really just going to take him at his word for it, though?”

“I bet Chenle’s gonna beat your training evals score,” Jisung says. “Then you’ll see.”

 _And our Tributes from District Two!_ comes over the speakers and their chariot starts moving forward into the stadium. Smile, wave, find the cameras, all reflexive. A rose lands at his feet and he picks it up, blows a kiss towards the crowd, which explodes into shrieks. This is the easy part. Jaemin knows that he’s good at this, and he lets it show.

When he arrives back at the Two suite after the parade, Jaemin throws himself onto the couch on the other side of Renjun, depositing the helmet on the coffee table and shaking his hair out. “Well?” Jaemin says. “How was it?”

Renjun’s expression is grim. “See for yourself,” he says, turning the television on and tossing the remote to Jaemin.

It becomes rapidly apparent that when the cameras had moved in for the obligatory close-up on Eleven B during his chariot’s circuit, he’d broken into a smile at just the right moment, a million shutters had gone off, and the Capitol lost its mind. Scrolling through the channels, all Jaemin can see is Eleven B’s smile is plastered across every screen. It’s pretty much the only thing receiving any kind of coverage at all—not even the Capitol’s old darling Lee Jeno is spared more than a passing frame, let alone anyone else.

Eleven B is handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way, big earnest eyes shaped like parallelograms, the type to inspire feelings of devoted protectiveness from older women especially; Jaemin supposes he can see the appeal. Enough to steal the spotlight away from the Careers, from _him_ , though? That’s something else entirely.

“Mark Lee,” Jaemin murmurs, to himself. He’ll have to keep an eye out, after all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As it turns out, Jaemin and Donghyuck get along like a fire on fire, with just about as much potential for collateral damage. Career interactions tend to devolve into a neverending spiral of _I know that you know that I know_ , so Jaemin compartmentalises. It gives things a nice sheen of sincerity that despite everything he still finds himself longing for. “Jisung made a _friend_ ,” Jaemin reports gleefully to the Mentors at breakfast the next day, and Jisung smacks him on the upper arm with the long edge of his hand.

Renjun hides a smile in his palm. Truly it bodes so well for Jaemin’s Games prospects that his Mentor derives enjoyment from watching other people inflict violence upon him.

“Yeah, well, Jaemin made _two,_ ” Jisung mutters.

“It just doesn’t have the same impact when you say it,” Jaemin tells him.

They head down to the Training Centre together. Jaemin elects to ignore the welcome speech in favour of cataloguing each available station in the massive room—there’s every weapon imaginable and then some, plus all the classic survival skills, though Jaemin won’t be needing to revisit those.

The Academy doesn’t allow its trainees to specialise until they’ve demonstrated basic proficiency at most other weapons, and out of sheer pride Jaemin has trained up to the extent of having several options for weapon contingency plans if for some reason he’s ever deprived of knives. Jisung beelines for the spears, where Chenle is cheerfully swinging one around with the expert nonchalance of someone who’s probably been handling them since birth; Chenle’s District counterpart is nowhere to be seen. That’s one decision made for them, then.

Just as predicted, Jeno heads for the sword station and Donghyuck for the archery station. Jaemin casts a glance at the knives station, currently populated by Seven B, who looks so terrified of the blade he’s holding that Jaemin’s actually taken aback for a moment. He can’t remember ever feeling that way about knives, right from the moment he closed his fingers around the textured hilt of his first knife, back when the Academy Trainers came to visit his old school on field day for recruitment.

Jaemin starts off with the obstacle course. He’s always liked agility exercises, the knowledge of total control over his body. He swings himself up onto the raised platforms, weaving between the crisscrossing ropes until he reaches the top of the structure. From his vantage point, he surveys the entire room: Chenle is showing Jisung how to hold a trident, both of them blithely disregarding the instructor; Donghyuck has abandoned his bow and arrows in favour of making kissy faces at Jeno next to the swords station. Jaemin stretches up, rising onto his tiptoes where he’s perched on the crossbeam, and then somersaults neatly back down onto the starting platform.

Showing off is fun. Intimidating the outer District Tributes in the process of doing so is even more fun. The battle for survival doesn’t start in the arena, it starts right from the second everyone congregates in the Centre, warfare on the psychological ground. He catches Seven B’s eye and smiles, showing all of his teeth. The blood vacates Seven B’s face in an instant. Easy.

The official formation of the Career alliance is easy, too: during lunch, Jaemin joins the table Donghyuck and Jeno have claimed and effortlessly inserts himself into the conversation, throwing a grape at Donghyuck’s mouth which he catches between his teeth, and after a while Jisung arrives with his lunch tray, taking a seat opposite Jeno. Donghyuck flags down Chenle as soon as he enters the dining hall, and then that’s all five chairs at the table filled.

Afterwards, the five of them annex the spears station to engage in the time-honoured Career pack tradition of looming around and sneering at the rest of the Tributes.

“Hey,” Jisung says, scrunching his face up. “Look at Eleven B. Is that a _scythe_?”

Jaemin turns to look. Over at the long-range bladed weapons section, Mark Lee is sparring with one of the instructors, parrying every blow with swift, sure movements, brow creased in concentration. He hates to admit it, but Mark is not bad.

“Where the fuck did he learn how to do that?” Donghyuck breathes, eyes tracing the path of the scythe with a transfixed intensity, almost like he’s being hypnotised. “What’s there to even fight in Eleven? The wheat?”

Like he can sense the weight of their gazes Mark looks up, but there’s no fear on his face at all, even with five Careers staring directly at him like they want to eat him. Instead, he breaks into a smile, smaller-scale iteration of the one that had stolen the opening parade.

“Ohh,” Chenle murmurs. “Cute teeth.”

“Why aren’t we allowed to fight each other during training,” Donghyuck says, making tetchy grabbing movements with his hands.

“So you can save that energy for the arena,” Jeno says, covering one of Donghyuck’s hands with his own.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes with such vigour it’s like he’s trying to power a small generator with the torque. “I’m calling dibs, okay? Nobody gets to touch Mark Lee until I do.”

Day two of training finds Jaemin sharing station space with Jeno. Swords are Jaemin’s third-choice weapon, so there’s enough breathing room there to admire Jeno’s form without feeling the instinctive need to use it as a measuring stick for his own performance, the powerful intensity of Jeno’s focus as he slices hologram targets apart. Jeno _is_ good. Having a sword in his hand transforms him, granite chiselled into more perfect shape.

“Not bad,” Jaemin says, when Jeno finishes the round and turns to face Jaemin, sweat sheening over the exposed dip of his collarbones.

“Think you can do any better?” Jeno challenges. Jaemin’s already pulling a sword out of the rack.

At the end of the day Jeno and Jaemin are stepping into the elevator for the residential tower when Mark appears, jogging around the corner with his arm raised. “Hey!” Mark calls. “Can you guys, um—”

Jaemin looks at Jeno. Jeno looks back at him, eyes wide. Jaemin reaches out to hold the doors.

Mark dashes into the elevator, driving his palm into the button for the eleventh floor. “Thanks,” he says, breathless.

Who in their right mind would put in the effort to _run_ in order to get into an elevator with two Careers? Jaemin is starting to think there is something seriously wrong with Mark Lee.

“You’re welcome,” Jaemin says. He stares at Mark.

The elevator starts moving. “I’m Mark,” Mark offers. “Mark Lee. District Eleven.”

“We know,” Jaemin says.

“I’m Jeno,” Jeno says. “District One.”

“I’m sure Mark Lee knows, too,” Jaemin says.

The doors open for the first floor. Jaemin reaches over Jeno to the button that closes them.

“Um…” Mark glances between their faces. “Wasn’t that your stop?”

“Oh, no,” Jaemin says sweetly. The elevator reaches the second floor, and again Jaemin hits the button to close the doors. “We were going up to the penthouse, actually. To have a look around. Twelve offered us a tour.”

Helpfully, Jeno presses the button for the twelfth floor. Mark looks increasingly perplexed with each passing second, but still not at all unnerved.

“So tell us about yourself, Mark Lee,” Jaemin says.

“There’s not really a lot to say?”

Jaemin doesn’t blink. “I’m sure that’s not true.”

Mark thumbs at the back of his neck. “Uh… I work on a farm? Though I guess everyone in Eleven works on farms. Haha,” he says. Out loud, instead of actually laughing.

“Fascinating,” Jaemin murmurs. He stares at Mark some more.

They reach the eleventh floor, and Mark holds the doors open. Jaemin hopes he’ll be able to see what terror looks like on Mark’s face very soon. “Well, it was nice meeting you guys. See you around?”

And Jeno smiles at him, dazzling, nearly _shy_. Jaemin is thunderstruck.

The doors close behind Mark and the elevator continues its journey upwards, finally free from the unnatural gravity of his presence. “Think we can convince Twelve to actually show us around?” Jaemin says.

“Probably,” Jeno says. “Is there really much point, though?”

“We could sneak out onto the roof,” Jaemin suggests.

“High ground,” Jeno says, nodding mock-solemnly. “I like the way you think, Two A.”

They exchange grins. Conspiratorial, the feeling doubling back, point to point between them. He likes Jeno, he decides. The doors for the twelfth floor open.

“Then after you, One A,” Jaemin says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right after his first human kill test, Jaemin was possessed by the incomprehensible urge to get himself to the highest ground he could find. Fortunately for him, just outside the Academy grounds there was a small mountain overlooking the entire District, only a few hours’ hike to the summit; they’d used it for orienteering practice earlier in the year. If he ran it’d take him a fraction of the time.

So Jaemin started running, the clean autumnal chill sawing right through his lungs, body a furnace of adrenaline burning itself out. Like this he was invincible, untouchable. He could feel his heartbeat in his fingertips. The slope beneath his sneakers grew steeper, but he didn’t slow down. There was nothing in the world he couldn’t outrun.

By the time he reached the top of the hill the sun was setting. He slowed to a jog, and then a standstill, letting gravity pull him down into a crouch, the harsh sound of his own breathing filling his ears. From this point, the whole of the District was laid out before him, indistinct specks of colour in the bruising light. If he squinted, he could make out the swoop of the City Square gates where the Reaping stage was set. To think that the sum total of everything he’d ever wanted could be condensed down into something so ordinary.

It didn’t matter that an hour ago he’d driven a knife through the throat and then the gut of a convicted criminal in front of the Trainers, sidestepping her clumsy attempts at fighting back. Waited for the blood loss to reach fatal levels, the way her hands, smudged with blood, uncurled from their fists right at the moment of death. That involuntary gesture of release. Red around the nail beds. The fingers going slack. Killing a human was nothing like killing an animal, but he’d done both now, and he was invincible and untouchable and on top of the world.

“You look awful,” came a voice from behind. Before Jaemin could scramble into a defensive stance Renjun was already taking a seat beside him. He passed Jaemin a bottle of water.

Renjun was a year older and preparing for his trial Games, so Jaemin never really saw him around anymore. He wasn’t among the favourites in his cohort—a candidate for top five at most, backup for the backup who would likely follow the Academy’s official pipeline into the Peacekeepers. But he’d set Academy records in knife skills, and free time often found them sharing the throwing range in semi-companionable silence, until one day Renjun saw Jaemin looking and offered to show him an easier hold, and that marked the start of a very hazy acquaintanceship.

Jaemin uncapped the bottle, took small, careful sips. “I never look awful,” he said. “What are you doing up here?”

“Saw you bolting up the mountain like you were being hunted,” Renjun said. “So I came after you. The route up the northwestern side’s shorter, you know.”

Overhead the night welled up like a container of ink upended. Jaemin set the bottle down. Keeping his gaze fixed on the city opening up underneath him, Jaemin said, “It was my first human kill today.”

“Want to talk about it?”

The honesty spilled out of Jaemin like an egg cracked open. There was just something about the slope of Renjun’s mouth that invited it, the deceptive softness there. Okay, so Jaemin had a bit of a crush, back then. It turned out to be some kind of sublimated envy over Renjun’s expertise with the weapon they shared interest in, subsided soon enough when Jaemin’s specialisation request was approved, but at the time he had vague daydreams of winning back-to-back Games and moving into neighbouring houses in the Victors’ Village.

He wasn’t thinking about any of that, though. He was thinking about the woman’s fingers unfolding as she died. He told Renjun as much, and Renjun nodded. “It really isn’t like the animal kills, right? But the first one is the worst one. It gets easier. You feel less.”

“I don’t feel anything,” Jaemin said. It was true. The wind had scrubbed his insides raw and all that was left of him was physicality, the pinpoint demands of his body.

“You will,” Renjun said. “But that’ll get easier, too. And if it doesn’t you’ll find a way to make it.”

Jaemin glanced at Renjun. Such a stillness in his eyes. _Will it?_ he thought, but he didn’t say a word.

Renjun climbed to his feet. Stuck out a hand. “Race you back down,” he said.

It was exactly what Jaemin needed to hear. Jaemin took his hand and let himself be pulled up.

Anyway, it was a long time ago, so Jaemin’s not even sure if Renjun still remembers. That open kindness so unexpected, so uncharacteristic he had no idea how to respond but then as now the gratitude came so easily it was overwhelming, his heart brimming with it. It never did get easier, but Renjun was right: he found a way. And he got to the bottom of the mountain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jaemin’s just exited the shower when someone bangs on the front doors to his suite like they’re trying to battering-ram their way into the room. He sighs and slams the button to open the doors, mostly to shut whoever it is up. From the other side, Donghyuck flutters his lashes at him.

“Oh, it’s you,” Jaemin says, unimpressed. “What do you want.”

Donghyuck grins, and Jaemin narrows his eyes in suspicion. “Your room is nicer than mine—”  

“Uh, all of the rooms are exactly the same? Also why are you bothering _me_ and not, like, your actual District Partner, you may have heard of him, his name’s Jeno—”

“—so we’re borrowing yours for the night,” Donghyuck continues, like Jaemin hadn’t spoken. Mark Lee— _Eleven B_ , Jaemin thinks out of petty resentment—waves sheepishly at Jaemin from behind Donghyuck. Jaemin blinks and finds himself standing on the opposite side of the doorway, Mark and Donghyuck inside his room; Donghyuck really is unreasonably quick with his hands. “Don’t bother trying my room, I locked you out. Thanks Nana, you’re the best!”

The worst part is that neither Donghyuck nor Mark bother to actually close the door, so Jaemin gets an eyeful of Donghyuck shoving Mark onto the bed— _Jaemin’s_ bed—and climbing over him. Jaemin could literally walk in and drag them out of his room again if he really wanted to. “ _Unbelievable,_ ” he hisses, and catches Donghyuck making a rude gesture at him just before he slams the door shut himself.   

For a while he entertains the notion of going back into his room to crash on the couch, or in the bathtub, and simply ignoring the two of them. But Donghyuck is not the type to be intimidated by such a gesture, and Jaemin foresees very little sleep in his future if he heads down this path.

So that leaves the option of bothering someone else to let him sleep over. There’s a fifty-fifty chance that Renjun will either let him in or strangle him on the spot for intruding, and Jaemin generally likes his odds a little more solid than that. Under normal circumstances he would have gone to Donghyuck, but obviously that option is not on the table right now. Which leaves—

Jaemin takes the elevator down a floor. Heads down the corridor to Jeno’s room and knocks. As soon as Jeno opens the door Jaemin marches past him and throws himself onto the lounge. “Your District Partner is currently fraternising with the enemy by sucking face with Mark Lee in my room,” Jaemin announces. “Possibly also dick, I didn’t stick around to check. Wait, maybe I should’ve? You think they would let me watch?”

“Huh—your room? Why not, like, one of their own?”

“Because Donghyuck is Donghyuck and I didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late, that’s why,” Jaemin says. “And I can’t sleep in _his_ room, the asshole locked me out. And I didn’t want to wake my Mentor up.”

“But what if _I_ was asleep?”

“Well, you weren’t,” Jaemin says, stretching himself out across the length of the lounge. “Anyway, I thought you wouldn’t mind. _Do_ you mind?”

Jeno stares at him. Then he bursts into laughter. It’s a boyish sound, out-of-place in the image he’s been building for himself over the past few days, years probably, though Jaemin thinks he’s starting to get the hang of the kind of person Jeno really is. He puts his hand in front of his mouth, composing himself just as quickly as the sound had slipped out, but the upturn to his eyes lingers.

“Don’t worry,” Jaemin says, waving a hand magnanimously. “I’ll take this reasonably spacious couch. I’m not going to kick you out of your own bed, I’m not _Donghyuck._ Unless you’re up for sharing.”

“I don’t mind.”

“... That I’m not Donghyuck?”

“If we share,” Jeno says. Casual as anything. Jaemin bites back a smile, stands up.

He climbs into the bed, which is in all aspects identical to his own and undoubtedly Donghyuck’s too. After a moment, Jeno moves to join him. Jeno leaves a respectful column of space between them, and briefly Jaemin wonders what Jeno would do if he reached out. Closed that gap.

“No murder attempts while I sleep,” Jaemin warns. “Jisung would have to avenge me, it’s not good for inter-alliance solidarity.”

“Knives are closer range than swords,” Jeno remarks. “Should _I_ be worried about getting stabbed in the back?”

Jaemin’s neck prickles with tenderness. “If I ever try to stab you,” Jaemin says, entirely heartfelt, “rest assured that it will be from the front. Good night.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Jaemin.”

Jaemin doesn’t respond, feigning sleep, though the gesture really is less about fooling Jeno into thinking he’s still unconscious and more just on principle. Like any good Career he’d woken at a respectable 5 a.m., approximately the same time Jeno had disentangled himself from the covers and left the bed; a few days of Capitol luxury is hardly enough to fool his body out of a decade of habit.

“Nana,” Jeno says. There's a hint of a smile in his voice, now.

“I didn’t say you could call me that,” Jaemin says, eyes still closed.

“You let Donghyuck,” Jeno says.

“That’s because I like Donghyuck.”

“So… do you not like me?”

Jaemin cracks open an eye. Jeno is indeed smiling, eyes crinkled up, crouched beside the bed so their faces are level. “Mm,” Jaemin says, pursing his lips. “I’m still making up my mind.”

“Rude, you’re sleeping in my bed right now,” Jeno points out.

“Donghyuck would let me sleep in his bed,” Jaemin says.

“Hyuck is the reason you have to sleep in someone else’s bed.”

“Okay, good point,” Jaemin says. He makes a show out of stretching and sitting up, and Jeno stands up as well, politely turning his back so Jaemin can change. This is an incredibly pointless gesture, since Jaemin wouldn’t have been able to make it past Fourteens if he still had any self-consciousness over being naked in front of others, and he’s sure it’s a similar situation for One, but he’s charmed nonetheless. “Donghyuck is temporarily displaced from my list of favourite people.”

“Who’s on the list?”

“Jisung,” Jaemin says, wrestling a shirt on. “Myself. Mark Lee.”

Jeno takes a seat on the edge of the bed. “So where do I rank?”

“Like I said,” Jaemin says, reaching out to straighten up Jeno’s collar. “Still making up my mind. Do you guys do calisthenics in whatever your version of the Academy is? I need to stretch.”

“Wow, so you’re definitely at the bottom of _my_ list,” Jeno says, but obligingly he slides to the floor beside Jaemin, butterflying his legs.

One’s version of the Academy—the Sports and Recreational Centre, affectionately dubbed _the Rec,_ as it turns out—is apparently run with military austerity, the complete opposite of the opulence One brands itself with. It’s not like Jaemin is a stranger to strictness, but the way Jeno describes the One Career training lifestyle makes even him wince in sympathy.

There’s something strangely calming about being around Jeno, a sense of safety so complete it’s alarming. Jeno has absolutely nothing of Two about him, should in every way be a stranger to him, at most an ally of extremely mutable circumstance, but Jaemin had slept through the entire night right next to him, a living weapon of a boy. He looks at Jeno and doesn’t see the image of what he’d look like dead by Jaemin’s hands superimposed over him. Only Jeno and nothing else.

“I should fuck someone in Donghyuck's room, that’ll show him,” Jaemin mutters into his knees, folding himself as closely in half as possible at the hinge of his waist as he reaches for his feet, feels the pleasant, muted burn all the way down the backs of his legs.

Jeno hums, legs spread in a wide-angle vee. “Mark likes you,” he offers.

“First of all, how are _you_ on a first name basis with Mark Lee too, am I the only person in the Career pack who isn’t? Second of all, I can’t fuck Mark Lee in Donghyuck’s room,” Jaemin says, aghast. He straightens up. “I’d need to, like—marry him first? He has that kind of energy, you know? Maybe _Donghyuck_. I think he’d be up for it. Wait, that doesn’t make any sense, it’s his room anyway.”

The obvious option circles them like an electric veil, crackling, suffused with intent. Jaemin could bring it up for fun, now, but the moment’s passed, anyway. It’s too late to say it without it sounding like an awkward proposition, which Jaemin supposes it is. It’s mostly the _awkward_ part he objects to, because why should physicality even matter? Violence and desire are mirroring instincts, and everyone knows how much of a sponsor draw two objectively hot people making out on camera is. It’s more One’s purview than Two’s, though the Academy teaches the strategy too; of course it isn’t an ideal path to victory, but Two does everything it can to bring its children home.

Uncertainty is never a good look on a Career. Luckily, Jaemin has never been uncertain in his life. He knows what he wants, what his District wants, and that’s to win. The thought eases him back into the contentment he’s begun to associate with Jeno. Late-stage hypothermia type of serenity.

“Well, if Donghyuck is still in my room when I get back I’m going to kiss Mark Lee in front of him,” Jaemin announces. “Or the other way around.”

“Uh, good luck with that,” Jeno says.

“Hey,” Jaemin complains. “What’s with the judgement? That’s not very supportive.”

Jeno smiles. “Was I too obvious?”

“Yes,” Jaemin says. Warmth glows in his chest like a briquette. “You can make it up to me, though.”

Thinking about it is unproductive. So he doesn’t bother thinking before ducking forward and pressing his mouth to the crest of Jeno’s cheek, heart buoyed up and singing as he leaves the room without a backwards glance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By the time Jaemin gets downstairs, Donghyuck is already seated at the dining table the Career pack has claimed, primly slicing an apple and radiating a disgusting amount of smugness. The collar of his training uniform has been carefully arranged to show off the edges of what looks like an impressively sized bruise just underneath his clavicle. Jaemin slits his eyes at him.

“You better not embarrass the alliance in training today,” Jaemin says, pulling out a chair.

“Please,” Donghyuck scoffs. “I could outrun, outfight, out-fingerpaint, out-whatever you in my _sleep_.”

“Yeah, because that’s the only place you’ll be able to beat me,” Jaemin says haughtily. He’s already regretting his next words as they’re leaving his mouth, but it’s too late to take them back. All or nothing. “In your dreams.”

The knife and apple stop moving. Donghyuck stares at him. “Are you feeling okay? Why did that sound like something Jeno would’ve come up with, what happened to the Nana we all know and love—”

“Why do I tolerate you.”

Donghyuck twirls the fruit knife between his fingers. “Because you love me,” he sings.

“I’m going to push you off the balcony,” Jaemin says, yanking the knife off Donghyuck before he slices a finger off. Donghyuck, the lawless ranged-weapon supremacist, has no respect for knives. Jaemin should just let him ruin his fine motor dexterity three days out from the Games; it would serve him right. “How did you even get into Mark Lee’s pants? When have you ever even talked to him? When you said you were calling dibs I so did not realise _this_ was what you meant.”

“I’m a social magnet,” Donghyuck says, framing his chin with his hands. “My charming personality draws everyone in. I’m sure you’d love to know the details, but _I_ want to know who you stayed with last night.”

“Jeno,” Jaemin says. “And no—” he raises his voice to forestall Donghyuck leaning forward in delight and opening his mouth, “we did not have sex, because we are both responsible Career trainees who take care of our bodies during such critical times.”

Donghyuck snorts. “Right, like you're not planning to fuck someone in my room as soon as possible for revenge.”

“I hate you?”

“You love me,” Donghyuck reiterates. He stretches and tips over into Jaemin’s lap, head pillowed on the meat of his thigh.

Jaemin sighs and starts petting his hair. Sometimes it really feels like the Ones are just overgrown cats. Jeno would probably like it if he did something like this, too, though he might not be so shameless in the asking.

“Elaborate on this thing with Jeno, though,” Donghyuck says, as if he’d somehow overheard Jaemin’s train of thought. “I’m both your best friends, I have an undeniable right to know.”

“Bold of you to call yourself my best friend when we’ve known each other less than a week.”

“It’s a privilege to be granted the title of Lee Donghyuck’s best friend,” Donghyuck says. Absently he grabs Jaemin’s wrist and presses a kiss to the base of his palm. “You should be grateful. I’m inducting you into the ranks alongside the likes of Jeno.”

“Do you like Mark Lee?”

“What—Snow, talk about a sudden subject change! I’m serious, are you feeling okay—”

“Just answer the question.”

“Why does it matter?” Donghyuck’s eyes slip shut. “We’re just having a bit of fun. If he catches feelings, then that’s even better for my Game prospects, isn’t it?”

Jaemin isn’t fluent enough in his moods to read the intent behind his words, if there is any, Donghyuck a routine he doesn’t quite know by heart. “And you’re so sure the reverse won’t happen.”

“Well, think about it like this,” Donghyuck says. “In a few days we’ll never see each other again. So what’s the point? Even if I did somehow… ugh, whatever—it’s not like anything could ever—come out of it.”

“That’s certainly a pragmatic way of looking at it,” Jaemin says. Countdown to the start of the Games inexorably eroding the bedrock they built the structure of their connection upon, but maybe in another lifetime he and Donghyuck might have been friends. He’d have liked that, he thinks. And then Jaemin’s mind loops right back around like a magnet snapping back into place: _Jeno. Jeno. Jeno._

If they had been any two people other than who they are. A pretty, useless thought. Jaemin waits for it to take shape, and then lets it go.

“I’m always right,” Donghyuck says. His eyes open. And perhaps it’s a trick of the light, or a simple lack of familiarity, but for a moment he almost looks sad. It clears before Jaemin even has the chance to blink, though, so he doesn’t say anything.

That’s how Jeno finds them, when he arrives at the dining hall: Jaemin carding his fingers through Donghyuck’s hair in steady movements, both of them quiet, waiting for the day to start in a silence that could be knowing if they let it form that way.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The thing is, Jaemin isn’t stupid enough to think that he matters to his District right now as anything more than an extension of his knives. This is not particularly important to him either way, because he’s good with knives, and he likes being good at things. So he cultivates the brutality; so he draws a predator's impulses around himself like a second skin, close enough to the heart he can even believe it most of the time.

But despite all this choreographed machination there are gaps that even the Capitol can't eliminate, rules Jaemin will never be able to circumvent. Flipping his knives out of their holsters, the casual flick of his wrist to send them hissing towards the target, and always that infinitesimal moment of stillness between the draw and the throw, just before he feels the hilt leave his palm. The boundary between intent and action. All the want in the world means nothing if it can’t be translated into something real.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mirror and bookend to the Reaping recaps, the four of them gather together again for the training score reveals in the common room of the District Two suite. Jaemin has the privilege of Careerhood practically guaranteeing him a score in the high range, so it’s really just a matter of the specifics—and, on a personal satisfaction level, the relative performance of everyone else in the alliance.

 _Versatility,_ Renjun’d reminded him just before he went in. _They know you can do knives. Show them everything else first._ So he’d gone a round on the obstacle course, then hacked up a few dummies to prove he had the strength to handle heavier weapons, before going for the knives. Done a few flashy tricks, head-heart-stomach in a row on the moving dummies. He thinks it was a decent showing, all in all, but the Gamemakers’ judgement is ultimately elusive.

Jeno’s face appears onscreen first, followed by an  _11._

That’s certainly one way to kick off the scores. “What the fuck, ” Jisung says. “What did he do in there, bring someone back from the dead?”

Boa and Renjun exchange meaningful glances. Renjun takes out a touchpad.

Donghyuck scores a 9, which is perfectly respectable for a Career, but probably hard to swallow after the record Jeno’s just set. Jaemin’s face flashes up—9. He doesn’t have time for disappointment, because the screen’s already moved on to Jisung, who scores a 10.

Chenle gets a 9, and Jisung elbows Jaemin in the ribs. “ _Told_ you,” he crows.

“That’s not beating my score, that’s just _equalling,_ ” Jaemin protests, but as per usual Jisung pretends not to have heard him.

Jaemin stops paying attention after Chenle’s score is announced, and it’s only when Renjun inhales sharply and jolts upright that he refocuses on the screen, just in time to catch Mark Lee’s mildly embarrassed smile and the _10_ printed next to it.

“What the _fuck,_ ” Jaemin says.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mentors call an emergency Career alliance meeting, everyone congregating in Jeno’s room. Jaemin doesn’t miss the way it positions Jeno as the unofficial leader of the Career pack, but he supposes it’s the sensible thing to do, on a purely strategic basis.

“Well?” Chenle pipes up. The purple dye from the parade is washing out of his hair, closer to a faded pink, now. “Do we want him in?”

Donghyuck crosses his arms. “No,” he says immediately.

“That is so not the impression I got when you had your tongue down his throat,” Jaemin says.

“I don’t mix business with pleasure,” Donghyuck says loftily. “He won’t ally with us, anyway, so we can save ourselves the embarrassment of asking.”

“Is he _crazy?_ Who would turn down an invitation to join the Career pack? Anyway, if we really wanted him in I’m sure he could be convinced,” Jaemin says. “Who’s his Mentor? Lee Taeyong, isn’t it? Easy, then. We just get Boa to talk to him, and he’ll change Mark’s mind.”

“Do you even want him in?” That’s Jisung, stirring at last from where he’s partly melted over the lounge.

 _Does_ Jaemin? What is it about Mark Lee, some nobody from the outer Districts, that has all of them, Gamemakers included, so fixated? The rapt light in Donghyuck’s eyes watching the bright arc of Mark’s scythe flashing through the air; the way Jeno smiled at Mark in the elevator, uncertain, almost shocked by its own sincerity. Even Renjun had paused over his profile, said with some vague iteration of wistfulness,  _he reminds me of someone I knew,_ then looked so unbearably sad for a moment Jaemin felt like he needed to politely avert his gaze, though it was most likely just a function of Renjun’s resting forlorn-bird face.

“Well, why don’t we put it to a vote,” Jaemin says. “Who wants Mark Lee in the alliance?”

Jeno raises his hand. So does Chenle. When everyone looks at him, he shrugs and says, “He’s cute. And useful! Why not?”

Stubbornly, Jeno says, “We don’t need him against us. If we get him on our side it means we can keep an eye on our biggest threat.”

“I don’t want anything to do with Mark Lee,” Jisung says. “We shouldn’t be, like, begging for charity from the outer Districts.”

“Me neither,” Donghyuck says. “And like I said, there’s no way Mark would agree. Even if his Mentor told him to. He’s too—you know. Like that. Idiot with morals, or whatever.”

“Jaemin?” Jeno says, turning to him hopefully.

“I don’t think he has anything to offer that we don’t already have,” Jaemin says slowly. “Even if you’re looking at it in terms of resources or sponsors or screentime and all that. He’s one person against all five of us—what can he even do?”

“That’s three to two,” Donghyuck says, elbowing Jeno in the ribs. “Sorry Jeno, Chenle, looks like you’re outvoted.”

“Aww,” Chenle grumbles, but he doesn’t seem to mind too much either way.

Jeno makes a face but doesn’t contest the outcome either, and the meeting splinters, Donghyuck leaning over the arm of the couch to strike up conversation with Jisung and Chenle. Jaemin rests a hand on Jeno’s thigh and immediately Jeno collapses against his side, pressing close to him.

“Congratulations on the 11, by the way,” Jaemin says. “What did you do in there?”

Jeno’s forehead creases. “Just the usual? Hacked up a few dummies, not much else…”

Of course—training scores aren’t always a perfect reflection of skill level. According to the Academy the Gamemakers also use them to drive narratives, set up targets, and this year it looks like the linchpin of it all is Jeno.

Jisung, Jeno, Mark Lee. There’s a voice in his head that sounds a little like Renjun telling him to detach, let go, start looking for paths to overcome them. But there’s still time. He still has time. Like this, Jeno’s weight nestled into him, the Games feel impossibly far away.

“Well, it’s a good thing we’re on the same side,” Jaemin says. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Like every other trainee in the Career program, Jaemin had his first kill test when he was twelve. You never knew when yours was coming, only that anywhere from one week to three months after your twelfth birthday a Trainer would show up in the middle of class to collect you and then you’d be gone for the rest of the day and come back the day after—different, somehow. The Trainers shut down any speculation as soon as they caught wind of it, but the Academy rumour mill worked tirelessly and it was basically an open secret, anyway.  

Jaemin’s had been a dog. He’d always had a soft spot for them. Could still remember the word in the dialect his grandmother refused to give up, which wasn’t really treason because it was tradition, and Two was nothing if not built on the architecture of memory. And of course the Trainers knew; what didn’t they know?

So when he was ushered into the test room and saw the white-haired dog trembling in the cage he wasn’t surprised at all. There was only one knife. He picked it up.

Nothing could have prepared him for how _loud_ it was. He’d tried to make the kill clean, sized up what he thought might have been a major artery, technique over showiness as he stuck the knife in, but the flesh wouldn’t give no matter how hard he sawed his wrist back and forth, and the dog wouldn’t stop screaming, jerking furiously under his hand. Panicked, he’d ripped the knife out, driven it into its neck over and over again until it stopped moving and then stood there, panting, fingers curled around the hilt of the knife so tightly he couldn’t feel them.

“Well done,” Trainer Junmyeon said, dropping a hand onto his head, and it took every last scrap of Jaemin’s resolve not to flinch away from the contact. “But don’t lose your cool like that next time. We’ll teach you how to do it properly, so don’t worry about it.”

He mumbled something acquiescent. Trainer Junmyeon nodded in approval.

“Take the rest of the day off, okay?” Trainer Junmyeon said. “Go clean up, there’ll be something nice waiting for you in your room.”

Jaemin went back to his room. There was a slice of cake on his bedside table, but the thought of eating turned his stomach. He scrubbed his hands clean in the sink, getting every flake of drying blood out from under his fingernails, then showered, then washed his hands again. His other roommates were all still in class, but Jaemin knew who wasn’t. He marched over to the junior dorms, ignoring Jisung’s yelp of surprise when he flung the door open and wordlessly climbed into his bed beside him. After a while Jisung’s hand moved with uncommon hesitation to the nape of Jaemin’s neck, curled in the damp hair there, and Jaemin shut his eyes and tucked his face more firmly into the crook of Jisung’s shoulder and thought about nothing at all.

He didn’t lose his cool the next time, or the time after that, animal replaced by human. Learned to make an art of it. It isn’t just about the act of killing someone else, though obviously that’s a reasonably important part of it. It’s about making it look good, too, knowing where to cut so the blood goes where you want it to go, so it lasts as long as you want it to last. How to put on a show. Most importantly, how to stay in control of it. You draw it out but you don't immerse yourself in it. Bloodlust is desirable, uncontrollable insanity is not. Careerhood is all about navigating these tightrope boundaries and Jaemin’s balance has always been faultless.

(Jisung completed his human kill test in record time. The version that goes around the Academy later has Jisung stepping out of the test room humming under his breath, arms drenched in blood up to the elbow, bare minutes after being called up. This version leaves out Jaemin wrestling Jisung into the shower fully clothed afterwards and grimly scouring the blood off him, because Jisung wouldn’t stop smiling, wouldn’t say a word even when Jaemin shoved him back against the tiled wall, arm at his throat, trying to trigger some reflex of self-defence at least, but all Jisung did in response was lift a hand and press it to Jaemin’s cheek, not even trying for the plausible deniability of a chokehold or a fight stance. Nothing but gentleness to the movement. That was the most terrifying part, because any sign of it should have been crushed out of him long ago, and all Jaemin could think was that he hoped the Trainers didn’t have cameras in the bathrooms. Jisung’s fingers were icy, slick with water, or maybe it was Jaemin’s own skin that was too hot.

 _Don’t cry, hyung,_ he said, and firstly Jaemin wasn’t even crying, but it really was a testament to how far gone Jisung was because he hadn’t called him _hyung_ in years. The Academy discouraged the use of honorifics among its students on the basis that skill and not seniority should determine respect, and Jisung had run full tilt ahead with it. But here they were, shivering in their soaked clothes, Jisung pliant under Jaemin’s hands, the vulnerability Jisung never let Jaemin see anymore bared like a throat. All the delicate parts of him exposed.

Jaemin doesn’t know if Jisung remembers. He’s never asked, and Jisung’s never brought it up, but sometimes when Jaemin closes his eyes he still sees that gesture of desperate tenderness superimposed over the backs of his eyelids. Jisung reaching out to him through the sheet of water. Himself folding as soon as Jisung’s fingertips touched his skin, love so ravenous it could swallow him whole. Careers have no family but their District. Jaemin has no family but Jisung.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In theory, Tributes aren’t supposed to be in the Centre outside of training hours, but in practice, Careers essentially have free access to the area if they want to get some extra time in. Tonight Jaemin’s the only person taking advantage of it, relaxing after a long day of training with some more training. Working with knives clears his head, a meditative state, mind free from everything but the weight of the blades in his hands, trajectory, momentum, calculations on instinct.

The moment he registers Mark’s entrance into the room Jaemin snaps into high alert, a sharp spike of tension hammering itself into the base of his spine. The tacit understanding is that after-hours use of the Centre is a Career District-only benefit, but who would say no to Lee Taeyong, universally beloved Victor of the last Quarter Quell? Jaemin adjusts his grip on the knife he’s holding, tries to regain the sense of equilibrium he had three seconds ago.

Mark moves from the door to the swords station, far too close to the knives for Jaemin’s liking, and starts warming up. Jaemin ignores him, refocusing on the targets at the far end of the range. Two throws later, Mark is looking at him.

If Jeno’s presence lulls Jaemin, Mark’s does the exact opposite. It’s not like Jaemin has a problem with being looked at, anyway. He’s a Career, he thrives off attention. But the insistent pressure of Mark’s eyes on him sets him on edge because it feels like Mark is weighing him up and finding him wanting, and he shouldn’t care one bit about what the lower districts think of him but for some inexplicable reason Mark’s judgement matters to him.

Lapse in concentration—his grip slips right as the knife is leaving his hand, and the hilt shears off what feels like half the skin on his palm. Jaemin hisses, bites back the flare of pain to compose himself, takes a seat by the edge of the mat to inspect the injury. It’s wide but shallow, the type that stings disproportionately, compared to its severity. He’s had worse, will have worse, but one of the first things the Academy taught him was that the human body isn’t built to remember pain. The capacity of his body for hurt will never stop surprising him, an unfortunate corollary of existence. He grimaces.

A shadow falls over his field of vision. Jaemin grits his teeth, and then lifts his head and looks Mark straight in the eye. “Something you want, Eleven?”

Mark nods at the scrape. “Looks painful.”

“It isn’t,” Jaemin says.

“Do you need—”

“No,” Jaemin says. “I don’t need anything.”

“Hey,” Mark says. “There’s nobody else around.” That’s not true. The cameras mounted in every corner are audience enough. “I could help? If you want.”

Jaemin swallows down the upsurge of bitter longing. Statistically speaking, at least one of them will be dead within the week. “There’s nothing I want from you,” he says.

Deliberately, he turns his back to Mark, making it clear he doesn’t consider Mark a threat to him. With his uninjured left hand, he tugs out a first aid kit, but trying to manoeuvre it around without making a fool of himself proves to be beyond his current capabilities.

“Seriously,” Mark says, sounding exasperated. “Let me.”

Jaemin eyes him. They’ve decided not to absorb Mark into the Career pack, but maybe there’s a narrative that can be spun out of this, too. Wordlessly, he nudges the kit towards Mark.

Mark fishes out a spray bottle and a patch of gauze, then with surprising gentleness takes Jaemin’s hand. The spray stings as it hits the raw skin on Jaemin’s palm, but it’s far from unbearable, and Jaemin would rather die than flinch in front of Mark. The gauze goes on next. Mark’s touch is light, careful as he applies it.

“I’m sure you know this already,” Mark says, “but that’s gonna take an hour to heal, so keep it on.”

The kindness in his gaze is unbearable. In Two it would have been stamped out of him years ago, or at least diverted into something useful. Jaemin averts his eyes out of something like misplaced fury.

“Why are you—” Jaemin cuts himself off. He doesn’t want to know the answer.

“Injury like that, you can’t hold a knife properly,” Mark says. “There’s no point beating someone who’s not—at their best. Don’t you think?”

He says it so matter-of-fact, not a trace of arrogance to the words, that Jaemin can almost believe it, a world where some boy from District Eleven without a day of training in his life can surpass him. It stuns him, how easily the vision coalesces despite everything that should separate them, keep Jaemin in possession of the upper hand.

“You really think you can win,” Jaemin says. He’d aimed wildly for condescension but all that comes out is wonder. The heart of it too close to the surface.

Mark grins. Jaemin’s throat closes up. “Well, only as much as you do.”

But it doesn’t make a single bit of difference what he says, because in the end it’s simple: Mark Lee, with his scythe and his fearless eyes and his evaluation score higher than Jaemin’s own, will not survive the Games.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeno has Jaemin backed up against the door to Donghyuck’s room, but not for long. Shift in weight, and Jaemin flips them around, so he’s the one caging Jeno in, arms braced on either side of Jeno’s head. Jeno rolls his eyes, mutters something rude, but Jaemin’s close enough to have caught the stutter to his breathing when he pushed Jeno back. He hums, leaning in, lips tracing down Jeno’s cheekbone.

It was probably inevitable. Some force-of-nature type of pull. Not much point trying to hold it off, and now he fits a hand to the curve of Jeno’s jaw, tilts his head up, looking at the delicate cast of Jeno’s lashes as Jeno’s eyes shutter. Jeno shoves his hips forward, insistent, the pressure of his hand on the back of Jaemin’s neck an unvoiced demand.

So Jaemin moves in. Jeno’s mouth opens up under Jaemin’s, lovely and sweet and eager. He presses the line of his body flush against Jaemin, sliding his hand up into Jaemin’s hair to try and deepen the kiss. Instead, Jaemin leans away, watches Jeno turn his head into the cradle of Jaemin’s palm.

“Oh?” Jaemin says, narrowing his eyes. He slides his thumb up from Jeno’s chin, brushing over the bow of his bottom lip, and Jeno gives easily, mouth falling open for Jaemin’s fingers on a silent exhale.

Jaemin presses down lightly on Jeno’s tongue, feels Jeno close his mouth. Puts his lips to the exposed curve of Jeno’s neck, right over the pulse, Jeno’s heartbeat at his teeth. Proximity is vulnerability. Even without the filed canines he’d once been slated to get he could tear Jeno’s throat out like this; already he knows he won’t. He bites down all gentle. Jeno makes a muffled sound around his fingers, and when Jaemin withdraws his hand Jeno surges forward to kiss him again, messy with teeth and tongue. Long flash of heat underscored with that same helpless tenderness he felt lying next to Jeno on his bed.

He’s losing his mind. He’ll probably care more later.

This time Jeno is the one who pulls back, flushed, eyes gleaming. He grins broadly. “Well, Two A,” he says. “Wanna take it inside?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometime just after midnight Jaemin’s startled from sleep by the pneumatic hiss of the door to his bedroom opening. He lurches upright, hand darting to the knife he keeps under his pillow and coming up empty; too late he remembers weapons are forbidden in the residential tower.

“Hey, hey, it’s just me,” comes Renjun’s quiet voice. As Jaemin blinks rapidly to galvanise his vision into adjusting sooner, the indistinct mass of shadows in front of him coalesces into Renjun’s slight figure, carrying an armful of dark fabric, which he tosses at Jaemin: coat, facemask. “Get dressed, we’re going out. I’ll explain later.”

Jaemin throws on the coat, tugging the hood over his head. The facemask next, but he pulls it down.

“I thought Tributes weren’t allowed to leave the building,” Jaemin says, under his breath, as they hurry through the corridor towards the elevator.

“You aren’t,” Renjun answers. “But there’s a few little things the Capitol will overlook for us. Privileges of being Two.”

They reach the ground floor. Renjun scans them through into the Mentor-only section of the tower. At this hour the hallways are devoid of anyone other than the Avoxes keeping silent watchful vigil.

The Mentors’ exit is discreet; Renjun nods at the Peacekeepers stationed there and they wave the two of them through, emerging into a nondescript back-alley. There’s a brisk, electric wind icy with anticipation skidding through the passageway, and Jaemin sucks in a breath the moment it hits his skin. It’s the first time he’s been properly outside since he arrived at the Capitol.

Renjun taps Jaemin’s cheek. “Facemask,” he says. Jaemin tugs it back up to cover the lower half of his face.

At the mouth of the alley there’s a car idling, windows tinted so dark they're nearly the same glossy black as the rest of the car. Renjun ushers him in and slides in after him, the door sliding shut by itself after them. The driver’s seat is empty.

“I don’t have the sponsor network the other Mentors have built up over the years,” Renjun says, as the car begins to move. Even past the tinting the streetlights flood over him through the windows, red, white, red, bleaching the exhaustion out of him. “Especially compared to Boa. That’s why I’ve been away so much. I’m close to landing a big one, but she requested to meet you in order to close the deal, so—I’m taking you to see her.”

“Okay,” Jaemin says. “What do I need to do?”

“Just your usual,” Renjun says. “Smile, turn the charm up, look beautiful. She’s an art enthusiast, she’ll love you. Remember—they want to believe it, so they will.”

Jaemin nods. “What are my odds looking like? Any change since the training scores came out?”

“Still four to one,” Renjun says. “Tied with One B, and Eleven B—”

Jaemin pulls a face. Mark Lee just will not leave the Career rankings _alone_. “Jisung?”

“Three to one,” Renjun says. “The Capitol _loves_ him.”

“And—Jeno?”

Renjun hesitates. “One A is at two to one,” he says.

 _“Two to one,_ ” Jaemin repeats incredulously. “Two to one! That’s never—has that ever happened before?

“It’s just narratives,” Renjun says. “The Capitol’s sentimental, because they know him already. You still have the interview, plus the actual Games to turn things in your favour.” The car pulls up outside an apartment complex, a massive spire of chrome and glass. “It’s going to be a big Games,” Renjun finishes, as they climb out.

Security waves them through into the elevator, where Renjun presses the button for the penthouse. The apartment door shimmers open as soon as they reach it, and Renjun doesn’t hesitate before walking through. Jaemin casts the doorway a dubious glance as he follows.

All the fixtures in the apartment are artfully rendered in sparkling crystal glass, light splattering across every surface like arterial blood spray. Any one of the sculptures in the alcoves dotting the living room could probably feed a Two family for an entire year. The woman curled up on the lounge doesn’t bother getting up to greet them, gesturing at the two of them to take a seat opposite her. For a Capitol citizen, she’s remarkably light on the body modifications, only a few tiny sapphires embedded into the skin beside her eyes, hair a long swathe of the same blue and threaded with iridescent strands.

“This is Victoria Song,” Renjun says. “Miss Song, Jaemin.”

Victoria regards him coolly. Jaemin, plastering on the most appealing smile in his repertoire, feels a little like one of the convoluted glass sculptures himself, totally ornamental. “You’re the one who was Reaped,” she says.

“Lucky coincidence,” Renjun says. “Jaemin was this year’s chosen Volunteer anyway—”

“Yes, yes, I saw the pin, I know what it means,” Victoria says dismissively. “So tell me. What makes you think you can win over everyone else? It’s an impressive roster this year.”

 _They want to believe it, so they will._ But Victoria doesn’t seem the type to be that easily swayed, and so Jaemin opts for the next best thing, which is some approximation of the truth. “Because I want it,” Jaemin says. He can feel Renjun’s eyes on the nape of his neck, a careful burn that keeps him grounded, reminds him of everything tethering him to his District and what he has to do.

“Everyone wants it,” Victoria says.

“Not like this,” Jaemin says, the surety suffusing his voice borne from eighteen years of purpose. “Never like this.”

“And your training score? One A beat you. So did that other boy from your own District.”

Renjun steps forward. Hand between Jaemin’s shoulderblades: _let me take this one._ “One is—well, One,” he says. “Show over substance. Two B is good, but he’s inexperienced. Jaemin has the drive and the talent and the years and years of hard work to back it up. He won’t let you down.”

“There’s still plenty of charms I haven’t shown yet,” Jaemin says, recovering his footing. The smile flicks on again, head tilt, slow blink. “Saving them for the arena. Best till last.”

Victoria leans forward. Her gaze cores him, a frankness to it that contains nothing of the limpid frivolity he’s come to expect from Capitolites. “My family came here from Two, before the Rebellion,” she says. “We haven’t forgotten. Do us proud, Jaemin.”

“Of course,” Jaemin promises. “You won’t regret choosing me.”

She sinks back into the chaise, closing her eyes. “I’ll wire the credits into your account tonight,” she says, languidly flicking a hand. It’s as clear a dismissal as any.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Jaemin,” Boa says, materialising in the doorway between the B half of the suite and the common room. “A word?”

Jaemin doesn’t startle, but he does come close. Since the Reaping, Boa’s barely said more than two words to him—she isn’t his Mentor but they do share a District, and Boa is something of a living legend, so Jaemin’d been a little put out at the lack of acknowledgement at first. He didn’t have the time to dwell on it, though, between training and managing his new host of interpersonal relationships.

“Sure,” Jaemin says. He stands up as a courtesy, waits for Boa to take a seat in the armchair opposite his before sitting back down.

“Well done on your interview performance,” Boa says.

That definitely wasn’t where Jaemin thought this was going. “Thank you, Boa-ssi,” Jaemin says carefully.

For the interview, Yuta had put him in ice blue contacts. _So you stand out,_ he said, passing a critical eye over Jaemin, then artfully tousling his hair a little more. Jaemin wasn’t sure how he felt about them, that single point of difference in his reflection startling, unnerving. Afterwards he’d gone straight for the bathroom to take them out, blinking until his vision cleared and he looked like himself again.

As expected, Jeno and Donghyuck had taken advantage of their interviews to reveal their friendship to the world. _I came here with my best friend, actually,_ Jeno said, eyes crescenting at Johnny Seo, and a gasp rippled through the Capitol audience. And Jaemin had done the same in his, just as rehearsed: _I’ve known Jisung since we were little kids._

_You’re telling me we’ve got not just one, but two Tribute pairs of friends?_

_Oh, yes, Jisung’s like a brother to me. We used to hold hands on the way to school,_ Jaemin said. On the widescreens, the camera closed in on Jisung ducking his head in mortification like any ordinary sixteen-year-old boy. The audience cooed, murmured; past the glitter of the stage lights Jaemin could see members seated in the front rows tearing up.

Johnny laughed genially, said, _Embarrassing him like a good big brother, hey? Even in Two! Even in Two._

“No need for formalities,” Boa says. “I’m your Mentor’s old Mentor, we’re practically family. I’ve been meaning to get you alone for a while, but Renjun wouldn’t let me near you.”

And Jaemin’s on guard again. Tenuous as his relationship is with Renjun, he does trust him, with his life if nothing else, and if Renjun was keeping him away from Boa then there must be a reason for it.

“I’m sure you must have figured out why the two of you were chosen together,” Boa says.

“The narrative,” Jaemin says. “Me and Jisung against Jeno and Donghyuck.”

Boa nods. “Head Office consulted me in the selection process. Do you know what I said? I told them they shouldn’t put you through with Jisung,” she says briskly. “I would have picked Eunji, maybe Hina. Narratives, closeness—these things can all be invented. We—the Academy doesn’t like wasting talent on suicide missions. But we were overruled. Orders are orders, and if _they_ want to see you and Jisung in the arena together, then that’s what they’re getting.”

Jaemin’s torn between glowing at the indirect praise of  _talent_ and bristling at the implication that he would throw his own life away. “Sorry to disappoint, but I didn’t come here to lie down and die,” he says lightly.

Boa doesn’t miss a beat. “If it were up to me I honestly wouldn’t have put you through at all,” she says. “You would have made an excellent Trainer. If this were One, then maybe I'd reconsider. But the typical Two candidate you are not.”

“Oh, what, like,” Jaemin says, because the joke is right there, “am I too beautiful?”

Boa’s gaze makes him feel like a fish run through lengthways with a filleting knife. “Your heart’s too soft,” she says, not unkindly. “You might’ve fooled all the Academy trainers, made it through the Career program just fine, but you think I don’t know how to look for these things? Too much love. That's why you’re not going to make it out alive.” She presses her lips together, shakes her head. “But—maybe you'll prove me wrong. A Two Victor is a Two Victor, in the end.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a Career means you need to understand the limitations of your own body. Jisung hasn’t learned this yet, still thinks he’s invincible. Doesn’t realise just how important restraint is, at certain crucial points. Left to his own devices he would not last a week in the arena. And so despite what Renjun thinks, Jaemin knows exactly why the Academy put him in alongside Jisung, knows exactly which one of them they’re hoping to get out from the Games.

No matter what happens he’ll put on a good show. It isn’t just Jisung’s dream, after all. This is what Jaemin wants, too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Renjun drops into the chair Boa had just vacated, which marks the moment Jaemin notices his presence in the room. It probably isn’t a good omen for the state of his observational skills, but then again he isn’t in the arena. Not yet.

“Games eve,” Renjun says. “What’s on your mind?”

“Nothing,” Jaemin says. “Boa talked to me just now—”

“Don’t listen to her,” Renjun says immediately. “She’s just playing the psych game. But I need to talk to you. About Jisung.”

“That’s actually exactly what Boa was talking to me about.”

Renjun bulldozes forward anyway, because that’s just what he does. “You passed your Academy exams, same as I did,” he says. “You know every single Tribute Two's ever sent in, and none of them have ever shared history before. You and Jisung—it’s unprecedented. I know you grew up with him. What I want to know is—”

“Renjun,” Jaemin says. The unsettling downwards swoop of his stomach tells him precisely what the next words out of Renjun’s mouth are going to be, before he’s even said them.

“—could you kill him?”

Jaemin shuts his eyes. “I won’t have to.”

“But if you were the final two—if Jisung was the only thing standing between you and coming home—”

“The chances of that happening—”

“If it came down to it,” Renjun presses. “You and Jisung, the last two left—could you go through with it?”

An entire lifetime up until this point, balanced on a knife’s edge against an entire lifetime from this point onwards. All Jaemin is—all District Two is—is memory, and his existence has been inextricable from Jisung’s for as long as he can remember. His last name broadcasted to all of Panem on the Reaping stage like a portent: _you will never be free from every single thing that has a claim on your heart._

Jaemin says—

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Afterwards, Jaemin finds himself in front of Jisung’s room, gripped by something with too much teeth to be sentimentality. “Jisung,” he calls.

“Go away,” Jisung says, the sound muffled through the door. “I don’t want you here.”

“Jisung.”

The door slides open. Jisung glares at him, more sullen than angry, so Jaemin squeezes past him into his room, kicking his shoes off, and though Jisung doesn’t move aside to let him in, he doesn’t stop him either.

“Why are you here.”

“To see you, of course,” Jaemin says. He settles onto Jisung’s unmade bed, crossing his legs, and pats the space next to him.

“I don’t want to see _you_.” But Jisung sits down regardless, leaving a careful handspan between their knees. Boa must have had the same conversation with Jisung that Renjun had with Jaemin, just now; Jaemin is almost certain of what Jisung’s response would have been.

There’s so much Jaemin wants to say to him that the words all dam up at the base of his throat. He looks at Jisung, the familiar scowl he’s wearing that hasn’t changed since they were children together, tries to overlay this specific instance onto the memory, flipping through the archive of every moment he’s ever looked at Jisung until it feels like his heart will smash through his ribcage. On impulse he seizes Jisung’s hands, and Jisung bristles like a threatened cat.

“Jaemin,” Jisung hisses. “ _Eyes._ ”

The cameras, of course. Jaemin grabs the blanket, throws it over their heads. “There,” he says. “Now there’s nothing to see.”

Half-obscured by shadow, the expression on Jisung’s face is impossible to parse. “What do you _want_ ,” Jisung says. He’s doing a decent job at projecting irritation, but Jaemin knows him well enough to see through it to the fear underneath.

He’s not ready. He shouldn’t be here, not for another two years. Jaemin wasn’t ready when he was sixteen, and Jisung might be a prodigy but the Games take more than pure skill to win.

“Jisung—”

“Don’t,” Jisung mutters. “Hyung,  _don’t._ ”

Jaemin reaches towards him and for a moment it looks like Jisung will flinch away, but Jisung lets him wrap one hand and then another around the sides of his face. “Park Jisung,” Jaemin says gently. The line of Jisung’s shoulders rises, taut, but he just closes his eyes, doesn’t say a word.

He could snap Jisung’s neck like this. They are not the people they were when they held hands on the way to school, when Jaemin crawled into Jisung’s bed after the first time he ever killed another living thing, when Jisung told him not to cry with water thundering down around them in the shower and blood clinging to the grooves of his palms. But they had been, once. Memory runs deep in District Two. Foundations are built to last, and the masonry of that shared history holds steady.

“Park Jisung,” he repeats. He leans forward and brushes his lips over Jisung’s forehead. One of them will be coming home. Tomorrow it will matter which one, but for now Jaemin is only inertia, the still knife balanced in his hand on the verge of motion. In the morning he will let their Academy years scar over, and his knives will reach every single one of their flesh targets without fail, and there will be no more room for things like familiarity, or regret.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out on the tarmac, Renjun affixes the golden pin to Jaemin's collar, twin of the one on Jisung’s, with clean, brisk movements. District Two’s final gift to its Tributes, concrete proof that every hour spent in the training rooms up until this moment on the world stage was worth it. That he’d been chosen. The third highest honour there is, in District Two.

“I don’t have anything left to give you,” Renjun says. “You don’t need me to tell you how to survive, do you?”

“Had twelve years to pick that one up,” Jaemin says. He’d shot for lightness but the strain to the words makes them both wince.

Some of the Tributes are already seated inside the waiting hovercraft. A few metres away Boa has her hands on Jisung’s shoulders, muttering something into his ear—last-minute advice, words of comfort, instructions on how to kill Jaemin if it comes down to it, he doesn’t know. Doesn’t care. He feels wrung out, a vessel emptied of every last drop, just like he did after his first human kill. When he imagined this moment lying awake and aching all over in the Academy dorms he always thought he’d be crackling with excitement, but right now there’s only a calm so total it’s almost sedative, the ancient immovable stone at the very heart of a mountain.

“Don’t let your guard down, but try to enjoy it,” Renjun continues. “You know what I mean.”

“Yeah,” Jaemin says. “Yeah. I know.”

Renjun draws in close and wraps his arms around Jaemin’s shoulders, their thinness belying the strength that carried him to victory. The fierceness of the gesture catches Jaemin by surprise, enough that he almost forgets to reciprocate. One last moment of tenderness.

District Two’s highest honour? To return from the arena alive, of course.

“The person you are in the Games doesn’t have to be _you_ , do you understand? It doesn’t matter what you do in there,” Renjun says, angling their heads so that his mouth is hidden from any prying eyes, digital or human. The warmth of his breath ghosting over the shell of Jaemin’s ear. “Just come home.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s bright, aboveground. Jaemin gives himself three seconds to acclimatise before he starts sifting through observations. Open grassland, a few scraggly clumps of trees. A glint in the distance that could be water. Not much cover from the elements at all. The sun is out now, but if the temperature drops at night they’ll be in trouble later on, once the sponsor funds start drying up. Seems like an unremarkable arena in terms of geography, though the Gamemakers always have a few tricks up their sleeves. Hunting should be fun, when the time comes.

He rolls his shoulders. Scans the field, and—there. Right next to the mouth of the Cornucopia, a gleaming array of knives. Nearby, a crossed set of butterfly swords, no doubt for Jisung—Jaemin catalogues a bow for Donghyuck, a trident for Chenle. A scythe for Mark—a lot of scythes for Mark, actually. There’s a million swords lying around, probably all made to Jeno’s specifications; the benefits of coming in as the Capitol’s favourite.

He knows how to survive. He knows how to win. That’s all that matters.

The klaxon goes off and he starts running, scooping up a flimsy outer-circle sword to arm himself before discarding it between the ribs of a Tribute getting brave for a better one when he reaches the middle circle. Jaemin’s eyes are on the set of knives. It’s bloodbath time.

Chenle hurls an axe at the back of someone trying to make their escape into the woods and whoops when it thuds home. There’s no time for artistry yet but Jaemin still aims away from major arteries, for better hunting later on. He gores Twelve A through the shoulder, catches someone else in the hamstring, enough to incapacitate but not kill, and lets them run. Either the arena will get them or he will.

In the periphery of Jaemin’s vision Six B is reaching for the trident. Without breaking stride Jisung grabs a sword, guts him with a neat downward stroke so brutally efficient Jaemin’s breath catches, then tosses it aside to pass the trident to Chenle, who catches it one-handed and yells out a _thank you!_ , taking advantage of the forward momentum to drive the prongs into some unfortunate Tribute’s stomach.

Donghyuck’s foregone the bow in favour of a studded mace he swings around with an almost bored ease.

“You’ve been holding out on us,” Jaemin accuses.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Donghyuck says airily.

The knives are beautiful. When Jaemin picks one up the heft of it is perfect in his palm. It whistles through the air and buries itself dead centre in Eight B’s throat, and Eight B goes down with a gurgle. How easy it is, giving himself over to violence, the bright, clean song of his body’s learned expertise.

Renjun was wrong. The person he is in the Games _is_ him, has to be him, because he has nothing else. Knife in hand, cameras on him. This is what he was born for. This is what he has always wanted.

More pressingly, there’s only four of them in the bloodbath right now. “Where’s our beloved Lee Jeno of the hardworking face?” Jaemin calls.

“Fuck if I know,” Donghyuck says, slamming his mace into the back of Five B’s skull. “Cornucopia?”

“Why the _fuck_ —never mind,” Jaemin says. He vaults over the bodies of Eight B and Five B, swiping up a fresh handful of knives as he jogs towards the mouth of the Cornucopia. No need to be resource-conscious just yet. He blows a kiss to the camera hidden behind a pile of rucksacks, because it never hurts to do a bit of sponsor pandering.

Inside the Cornucopia time seems to slow, suspend itself. His eyes adjust to the dimmed light, catch on the line of Jeno’s back. _What are you doing?_ dies on the tip of Jaemin’s tongue as Jeno turns towards him, sword in hand, pointed towards the ground. Jeno’s eyes flick down to the knife Jaemin is holding, then to his face.

Jaemin could kill him now. He thinks the realisation is simultaneous, though none of it shows in Jeno’s expression, except for the way his eyes darken. But Jeno makes no move to bring his sword up. Instead he tilts his head up, almost imperceptibly. Still watching him. That gaze like a live wire. It would take nothing to drive the knife in his hand through Jeno’s windpipe, bring himself and Jisung so much closer to the finish line. At this distance he could have three embedded in Jeno’s throat before his body hit the ground. His fingers tighten on the hilt. Jeno in front of him, throat bared, stance easy and open, life in Jaemin’s hands as surely as if it were his neck beneath Jaemin’s fingers instead of a blade. This too is a test. What is he waiting for?

One heartbeat, then another. Jaemin smiles at Jeno, a deliberate flash of teeth. “You’re missing out on all the fun,” he says. “Are you coming?”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much if you've made it this far... this is the longest single-chaptered fic i've ever posted so any feedback would be super appreciated!!! feel free to chat with me in the comments or drop by my twitter [@juncheolsoo](https://twitter.com/juncheolsoo) / my cc [@inheritance](https://curiouscat.me/inheritance) ♡


End file.
